I also complain a lot

The four selfish acts of parents.. or why I curse my filial piety.

I was debating hard on not writing about this. I can just imagine what the backlash would be like if I go and publish it, but it’s nagging on me since Monday. Sure, this would not be the first grand decision I have ever made in my life (looking dejectedly on the many wrong decisions I’ve made in life), and I might live to regret this, seeing that I am most probably (most being the key word here) be burning a lot of bridges by going through with the publication of this one particular rant. But, hey, who’s going to stop me? So, without further ado, I would like to state my apologies before things go south, and bear in mind that I was not thinking of anyone in particular (except for my close family) whilst I was writing this piece. Here goes nothing.

There are a number of reasons that I can think of as to why people have kids; (1) they got knocked up before marriage and for whatever reasons, they decide to keep the baby, (2) they thought that after marriage, having kids is the second most logical thing to do, (3) they needed an embodiment of their love, so why not create another human being out of it, (4) they’re looking for another challenge (as odd as that might seem) and/or (5) it’s all just a by-product of the sexual release of the parents (cynical, I know, but you can’t rule this reason out). And, see, the problem with all those reasons is that the decision on bringing kids into this world were solely made by the two people involve, with no regards to the third party (the kid being the third party). And of course I’m not stupid. I know that babies aren’t just lounging around in heaven (or wherever it is they lounge around before they’re sent to a mother’s womb) waiting for God (or whoever it is up there) to asked them whether or not they want to be born. So, in all technicality this first act of selfishness was not entirely selfish, because the parents themselves were not aware of this, yet, but I’m still putting in down as one of the selfish act of parents.

The moment a child is born, parents go through a lot of rampage in preparing the child’s life. From their clothing, what brand of baby diapers they are not allergic to, what kind of food the mum should be eating so she can produce top quality of breast milk, the kind of activities the kids should be doing prior to proper schooling, what kind of school they should go to, what line of work they should be planning to from early on, what kind of proper spouse they should be looking for; really, parents are total control freak and sometimes they don’t realise that. They believe that they are giving what’s best for their child, while it is admirable and it did came from a good and well-intentioned heart, surely at some point this control freak attitude should diminish, right? But, no, parents are just too damn selfish to give their children enough credit to let them think for themselves, to let them made their own mistakes, to at least give them the benefit of the doubt to state their reasoning.

It’s bad enough that you were brought up into this world without your consent, how you live your life to were dictated by someone else without a single regard about what you want. I’m not projecting anything by saying any of these, if anything my parents were pretty much liberal in letting what their kids want, not for lack of trying but because they couldn’t be bothered. I have lost count of how many times my parents were saying that they did what they did for the children’s benefits, when it actually fits their own agenda. Sound about selfish, would you not think?

No, hear me out before you lash out at me. “Inadvertently” being the key word. Sure, when you put inadvertently as the key word, it’s sort of negate the whole “this counts as a selfish act”, but it still is actually. Take my folks, they like to play the stern parents that sometimes they forgot they also have to be a regular parent. They are so used to being hard and stern on us, they might have forgot that it shaped how we behave towards other people. Their relationship between them two also affects us. Basically, the nurturing that kids have from their parents shapes and moulds them in so many ways that when nature takes its own course, most of the times it was just disaster waiting to happen.

Look, I wanted to be more specific on this, but I can’t; that would just be like I’m airing my own dirty laundry for the world to see. To put it simply, most of the times parents don’t realise that how they behave and how they act around their kids fuck them up, either psychologically or just making you downright demented or at the very least weird. Come on, surely you know what I mean, right?

Ah, the ultimate selfish act. You probably (whether or not you acknowledge it) had hate or been angry at your parents growing up. You were angry for being born. You were angry for how they dictate your life. You were angry at them for making you less than normal. And it was easy isn’t it? It was easy to have a target, which you could just blame practically every single thing that went wrong in your life, right? And having your parents never to back down from admitting that maybe somewhere along the line, they might have screw up, just made it easier for you to hate them, to loathe them, to just push them away. Until, they are old, fragile, vulnerable and senile. This gets even worse comes their dying hours. They would ask for your forgiveness. They would admit to all the shitty stuff they did to you. They’ll put you under the spotlight, that even if you’re Houdini yourself, you can’t escape that spotlight.

What are you suppose to do, anyway? Be a git? Be an ungrateful prick? Because you refuse to forgive your dying parents now? As opposed to later? It’s selfish isn’t it? For them? They fuck you up, they won’t admit to it, but comes the time that they are dying, they suddenly had the urge to admit to it? To say that they are extremely sorry? For what? Just so they could die happily and calmly knowing that they didn’t actually fucked us up because we forgive them? That is shitty! And I curse my filial piety!! Because I know, if everything ever comes down to that, I would forgive my parents. I swear I would, in a heartbeat I would forgive them. No questions asked! Do you not see how horrible and selfish it is for parents to do this to their kids? And then, once they are gone, what is left of me? Void. Regret. Pain. Shame. Disappointment. Embarrassment. More Anger. For what? For nothing.

Gosh, I don’t ever want to be a parent. I can’t be that selfish prick knowing how much I hate it growing up.